Chavez Jr. looking thin already for Canelo fight

By Eric Baldwin: For the boxing fans worried about Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. having problems making the 164 ½ pound catch-weight limit for his May 6 fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez, you can rest assured because he’s already looking in great shape.

Chavez Jr. hasn’t been training for that long, but already looks thin and in superb shape. With three months to go before his fight against Canelo on May 6, the only concern is that Chavez Jr. doesn’t overdo it during training camp for the fight. He doesn’t need to over-train for the fight, because that would be self-defeating on his part.

If Chavez Jr. is at his best like he was for a number of his fights in 2011 and 2012, Canelo could be in for a rude awakening in this fight. Golden Boy might not realize the mistake they made by waking up a sleeping giant in Chavez Jr.

This is surprising that Chavez Jr. is already taking the weight off. It was thought that he would struggle with the weight, and be unmotivated and be ready for the fight. But in looking at the video of Chavez Jr. working out, it’s now apparent that he’s going to be able to make weight for the fight.

It’s also clear that he could have made the 168lb limit for all of his fights since 2013 instead of just two of them. Chavez Jr. failed to make the 168lb limit three times since 2013, but he also didn’t have the motivation that he has now with him fighting Canelo Alvarez on May 6 in a high stakes fight. If Chavez Jr. can win this fight, then he can a rematch with more favorable terms than he got for this fight.

When the news was announced that Chavez Jr. was going to be facing Canelo on HBO PPV on May 6, many boxing fans of the sport saw it was a negative, because they didn’t feel that Chavez Jr. could make the weight. The fans that did see him making the weight, felt he would be too weigh drained afterwards for him to be able to put up a hard fight.

The fans think that Chavez Jr. will be weakened from coming down from the 190s to the 164.5lb catch-weight for the fight. After all, that’s 30 pounds of weight that Chavez Jr. will need to trim off for him to make the 164 ½ pound limit. However, if Canelo is able to do it somehow, then Chavez Jr. is going to be able to take the weight off as well.

Losing the weight is really not that hard for fighters do take off. The trick is to take the weight off without it causing a fighter to be weakened after they rehydrate. It’s a fine art that some fighters are better at than others.

Canelo Alvarez is very good at taking off massive amounts of weight to fight at his special weight class at 155 and then putting it back on, but he’s also still very young at 26. As Canelo ages, he’s likely going to have much tougher time in melting off huge amounts of weight and putting it back on.

Once Canelo starts having problems with the weight, he likely won’t be finding success in boxing unless his promoters at Golden Boy match him carefully by keeping him away from the best. Some fans argue that Golden Boy is already doing that with Canelo now by not matching him against Gennady Golovkin, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara, Julian Williams, Daniel Jacobs and Jermell Charlo. Golden Boy is matching Canelo against fighters like Liam Smith, Alfredo Angulo, Amir Khan and James Kirkland.

If Chavez Jr. gets his weight right for the Canelo fight, he could pull off a big upset by winning this fight. I don’t know if you can call it a huge upset though, because Canelo has already been exposed in his fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Austin Trout, Miguel Cotto, Erislnady Lara and even Amir Khan to a certain extent. Canelo is a good fighter, but he’s not as good as some boxing fans think he is.

Canelo isn’t being matched against the best fighters any longer since he won a controversial 12 round split decision over Erislandy Lara in 2014. The only reason Golden Boy picked Chavez Jr. because they feel that Canelo can beat him because he’s not looked good in a fight in five years. But they made have made a miscalculation by choosing Chavez Jr., because he seems to be taking the fight very seriously with him dropping weight so quickly and looking good.

I guess Chavez Jr. hasn’t had any fight that has motivated him in the last five years in the same way that his fight against Canelo is now. You can understand that when you look at the guys that Chavez Jr. has fought in the last five years. Here are the fighters Chavez Jr. has faced since 2013: Brian Vera [x 2], Andrzej Fonfara, Marco Reyes and Dominik Britsch.

You can understand why Chavez Jr. might not have been motivated by any one fight since 2012 when you look at who he’s been matched with. Chavez Jr. is one of those fighters that needs to be constantly motivated by being matched against the best fighters. When his management stopped putting him in with the big names after his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012, they unknowingly caused Chavez Jr. to lose interest in the fights. Now that he’s matched against a good fighter in Canelo for their May 6 fight, we’re seeing Chavez Jr.

This should be a good fight if Chavez Jr. is able to make weight and rehydration without it causing him to be weakened by the process. I don’t think Golden Boy and Canelo are expecting Chavez Jr. to be in top shape, let alone making the 164.5lb limit in the first place.

Chavez Jr. could surprise a lot of boxing fans and shock Golden Boy and Canelo by coming into the fight like the old Chavez Jr. from years ago. When Chavez Jr. has been at his best for fights, he’s been incredibly good. The only time that he’s struggled is when he didn’t give it his best during training camp.